The field of the invention relates generally to fastener installation, and more specifically, to a template that aids in the installation of fasteners.
It is almost always desirable to increase efficiency of a workplace. As such, engineering and other personnel are often charged to find solutions that increase efficiency of such workplaces.
As far as existing solutions for fastener installation, an original solution was to utilize no shop aids, and to install the individual fasteners by hand. In an aircraft, there are literally tens of thousands of such fasteners and hand installation is inefficient. To increase efficiency of fastener installation over the hand installation method, a fastener template was developed. This first-generation template, which is currently utilized in several manufacturing programs, consists of a triplex template of two outer polyurethane layers and one rubber layer between the outer layers. Fasteners are retained in holes through the polyurethane and are seated through the rubber layer and held generally in place in a relief hole passing through the rubber layer.
Disadvantages and limitations are known with the existing solutions. For example, when installing the fasteners by hand, human errors do occur. As such, one manufacturing process step is to ensure that the fastener installation matches the configuration defined by engineering. It is therefore easy to understand that hand loaded fasteners may be a source of error. Hand loading can result in dropped fasteners which may cause further human errors.
The fastener templates that utilize the rubber layer, while an improvement over the hand installation method, are not capable of holding fasteners in proper alignment, for example, a normal-to-surface alignment. This problem is exacerbated if more than one row of fasteners is incorporated into the template. Further, when the rubber sheet of this template has to be replaced due to wear, the replacement cannot be done on the shop floor. The template is sent to a repair facility to ensure that once repaired, it meets the configuration requirements of such a template.